Thank you for this entertaining and very useful article. I'm no stranger to fanfiction, myself. I've been writing in the "Harry Potter" fandom for three years now, and I've dabbled in the Star Wars fandom for the past couple of months, and most of what you say is true.

What I really enjoyed most about this, however, was the fact that it really made me think about the stories I've been writing, and I'll do my best to avoid these "Feeling Dump" tendancies you so accurately described.

I agree. I personally love angst, but when it gets to a certain extent, the taste becomes sickeningly sweet. Emotional fanfictions are important, but Fanfictional emotions are not compelling at all.

Author: Mistress of the Jedi(signed)Date posted: 5/22/2006 9:43:46 PMMistress of the Jedi's Comments:

I've come to notice these 'feeling dumps' with new fan fic authors. It's as if they use WAY too much of it and then the story goes flat. They don't understand that pages upon pages of angst and reuterance of a certain part of that characters past is just plain...boring, since there are many other fics that go along the same wave legnths.

I notice this more in HP fan fic, with Harry lamenting over Sirius' but enough of that!

No matter what fandom one writes, one must keep in mind when the data/feeling dumps get too much. There is no need to go on for pages about a sun set, as there is no need to go on for pages of a character sitting in the dark and crying over something that we can't figure out.

Instead, give us a paragraph of the sun setting and maybe three of that character in the dark; then bring in the plot. Please?

I know I'm gulty of this. I've written entire scenes that really would be better as separate vignettes geared for those who want just an angst/emotional scene, or just for me just to get it out of my system (even if it never sees the the outside of my own Word Doc file.) This artical will help me realize that putting these scenes into the big story isn't a good thing and when I even say, "does this really need to be in here?" I know that it doesn't, no matter how well written I think the emotion in the scene is.